Abilities

Nasus's bread and butter ability, much of the early/mid game should be concentrated on last hitting with Siphoning Strike. If done correctly you can have upwards of way over 100-150 bonus damage by the time you hit 18 and will hit extremely hard with this ability. Between Siphoning Strike and Sheen proc you can easily half shot any non-tank end game.

As Nasus is a Melee champion people who are slightly faster then him are his bane, this is where Wither comes in handy. Wither is both great used offensively and defensively allowing bot to ensure that champion kill or to escape from the jaws of death. Even though it's useful you'll only get 1 point into it early, the rest are gotten at the end of the skill build order.

Spirit Fire is what gives Nasus lane control and can effectively allow you to solo verses a duo lane. A great farming tool but early game requires you to be careful with your mana (I'll give a tip later on on how to place the spirit fire so it's used to its full potential.)

Much like Wither this is both a great offensive and defensive skill allowing you to both devastate champions in a 1v1 fight/team fight or just give you that extra bit of life to survive near death.

Introductions

Greetings, I am Argent Shaman. With much experience playing all the champions I would have to say that Nasus is one of the champions that I've had the most success and most fun with playing. Nasus is probably one of the most underestimated and underrated DPS champions and can "destroy" champions very quickly. (specially when a trinity force proc'd Siphoning Strike hits them for half to three fourths their life.)

I have seen quite a few builds of Nasus in my time of playing LoL from beta when he was first released and in my experience this build is one of these best builds that can allow you to stand toe-to-toe in damage with other DPS carry champions if not surpass them. Keep in mind that though you can fight 2-3 champions by yourself and kill them all you are not a tank and there for should not run head first into a team alone. (Nasus can be godly, but not 'that' godly) But even though you are not a tank Nasus has high survivability and can initiate team fights if you lack the proper initiator via Fury of the Sands.

Pros / Cons

Pros:
- Nasus is an amazing carry champion that hits like a truck. (Hitting non-tanks for upwards of half to three fourth their life end game.)
- Great natural survivability.
- Lane presence and lane control. (You are probably one of the best lane pushers who can easily solo mid or even solo lane against a duo lane.)

Cons:
- Will quickly become a focus target due to the amount of damage you can output or because Fury of the Sands scares the shit out of people.
- Can have mana issues early game if your spells aren't used correctly.

Masteries + Runes

These are the runes and masteries that I use and find work the best for me at the moment but feel free to modify it to your liking.

Summoner Abilities

The two summoner spells that I find that work best for me are...

Heal - Great for helping escape, healing a teammate or just baiting people to their death. I can't tell you how many times laning phase solo mid where I had cocky people try to kill me and I would drop rally, pop heal, and wither them and hit them and they would die.

[spell=rally] - Rally is what I like to call a mobile heal station and is very effective early game of giving you that little pick me up in health that you may need from time to time if soloing against a ranged champion solo mid or just getting harassed. Mid to late game it can be used to drop in team fights to help out your team a lot or to just help you push a tower.

These are the two summoner spells I would most recommend but you are not limited to them and can pick others based off your preferences.

Ability Order

After level 6 you'll mainly level up Spirit Fire as your primary skill, Siphoning Strike as your secondary skill and Fury of the Sands at 11 and 16. The reasoning behind this is that higher level spirit fires can farm extremely fast, one spirit fire can kill an entire wave of minions and set you up with a siphoning strike or two, as well as help out in team fights a great deal. Wither isn't leveled up past 1 point as it doesn't add much so it's best to leave it to be upgraded until later levels.

Items

Between your life steal, Health potion, Heal and Rally you should be able to easily stay in lane against anyone even harassers and with the Mana regen runes and mana potion you should be all set on mana until you first head back to base to purchase.

After the fifth item it more or less depends on how the game has panned out thus far. If you're doing well get an Infinity Edge or The Bloodthirster, If you're getting focus then grab a Guardian Angel. Keep in mind that this order is not final and can be changed to adept to the situation. If you're in need of survivability early in the build then finish the Banshee Veil before your Stark's.

Item Reasoning

[builder=Nasus/e2d5914c761abe5fbec2358649178ce9]

Playing Tactics

Early Game

As Nasus you first need to start out mindful of who you're laning with as Nasus is a great lane pusher and will steal a lot of the minion kills with his spirit fire. If your lane partner is good with last hitting this effect is mitigated some, but can still come into effect. None the less as Nasus you should be able to easily dominate any lane you're in, even solo mid, because of Spirit Fire farming.

One flaws with Nasus is that early game Nasus suffers from having low mana which hurts but can easily be handled by properly using Spirit Fire. The best way to use this ability to its full potential is to wait until the minion meet each other and begin attack, at this point your Spirit Fire can hit all of the opposing minions and allows you to get the most benefit out of the ability. But, refrain from spamming it as often as you can, if there are only a few minions left then kill off the remaining minions and save the spirit fire for the next wave as to conserve mana.

The second thing you should concentrate on is last hitting with your Siphoning Strike. This ability is Nasus's bread and butter ability that allows him to do massive damage mid to late game. At around level 6 or as soon as you can buy your Sheen you should return to base to purchase it, not only will it increase your damage but it'll also allow you to last hit much easier.

Mid Game

By Mid game you should easily have Trinity Force, Mercury Threads and part of your Stark's. This is the part of the game where Nasus starts to show his DPS potential. Between his Spirit Fire lowering an enemies armor, your armor penetration runes, and the Trinity and Siphoning Strike proc you should be able to hit very hard, easily hitting for a quarter to a third of their lives on the first hit. Additionally at this point if you've been leveling up your Siphoning strike you should be able to kill the caster minion with your siphoning strike as well as close to, if not able to, kill the melee minions with one Siphoning Strike as well.

At this point your team should be starting to team fight, you are easily capable of initiating team fights but if possible do not. Additionally do not of the team fight by using your Ultimate and running into the team fight, this is a good way to either waste your ultimate by having the enemy back off or get focused down very quickly, instead wait until the fight has started. As soon as you can in the team fight cast Spirit Fire which should help your team out a great deal because of its armor reduction and aoe damage and use Siphoning Strike as often as you can as this is where your greatest damage will come from. Once the team fight has been going on for a second or you begin to be focused then immediately use Fury of the Sands and go to town on their team aoe draining their lives and in turn making you hit even harder.

Late Game

By late game you should easily have your first four items if not extremely close and you should be able to start a fifth, usually though I rarely ever get past the fourth as the team fight can end really quickly with Nasus's and the rest of the teams DPS. By level 18, if you've been last hitting with Siphoning Strike, should be in the 100-150+ range and if it's not then you should work on last hitting in future games to get to this point. This is the point in the game where Nasus can half to three fourths shot any soft champion and do hefty damage to non soft champions, especially with Fury of the Sands active.

Summary

And there you have it, DPS Nasus. This is the build I always play and that I find to be the most successful Nasus build I've seen and I feel that should work wonders for others as well.

Please feel free to take the build for a test run and give any feedback that you feel would benefit it as comments are always welcome!